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Debate and opinions appreciated about 'Feature lock' idea

I'd like to hear more opinions and discussion about 'the feature lock' idea.

Description of feature locking:
- Leveling up / getting into better divisions / days spent in game will progressively open new features. For example in the beginning some parts of the strategy would be locked and you'd have to wait certain time and get a notification or achievement to unlock that part of the strategy. Maybe Youth Academy or features that can easily be used badly in the beginning could be locked for a while.

Pros and cons I can think of right now:

Pros:
1. Gives new players less things to worry and understand about. Makes it more simplistic.
2. Inserts a grind element (well not really grind, but being active and patient) into this game where you gain new things by progressively playing.
3. Players have another thing to wait and be excited about.
4. Gives new players structure in which order to learn things about.

Cons:
1. Might give too few features in the beginning for experienced manager game players who already know how manager games work and would like to spend more time sooner to figure out more.
2. Might not be appropriate for a manager game. Have seen some manager games using it to some extent, but not very widely. Is that type of grind element appropriate?
3. It makes it harder for new players to compete with the older players who have more features open even more than before.
4. Might give confusion about why can't use all the strategy elements initially?

Not entirely sure which pros and cons have which weights, but would love to hear more opinions.

This is mostly about strategy right now. And the idea originates from the part that it is a bit difficult to set up the strategy initially for some. Would this idea be applicable if for example strategy became even more complicated and is it too complicated for newer players right now?

Questions:

1. Should we do this type of feature in the game at all?
2. Is this feature necessary and is it helpful?
3. If we should do this feature what kind of features should be locked initially?
4. What other pros and cons might I be missing?
5. Should parts of strategy be locked at first and if so then which ones?

Thank you for your time!
9
I woudn't like it. Adds to much of an unfair advantage to higher players. And when you rank up and gain new features you have to redo your strategy just making it cumbersome and annoying
2
It would only make an unfair advantage if you are a new player rising faster than the features unlock. Lets say the features unlock every 100 elo or so. There would be no such problem.

edit: or add breakpoints to official wins such as League or tournament wins
2
1. Should we do this type of feature in the game at all?
It will depend on what features you will be locking .
2. Is this feature necessary and is it helpful?
I believe so because for people newer to the game they are thrown in with little knowledge on what to do , maybe even putting more information on strategies or more hard values than percentages .
3. If we should do this feature what kind of features should be locked initially? Market , Academy should be locked 100% in the start most players will not fully need to use this until they start earning some money
4. What other pros and cons might I be missing? I cannot think of anything else .
1
Should parts of strategy be locked at first? And if so then which ones?
3
I'd say every strategy feature should be open, when i started that was one of the things that impressed me the most. Me and my friend started testing all options same day we joined!
3
Hey guys,

I think it makes sense to apply that in some ways.

There are features kinda useless in the beginning that can be locked with some kind of mission to unlock them.

This would make the game way simpler in the beginning, at least me, one of the first things I though it was that this game as a ton of things to do and would require a lot of time... It happens that I was wrong, but still...

On League of Legengs this happens, until level 30 you don't have access to all Runes and Masteries, neither all champions probably.

And it is suppose to be hard to compete against older players, because they are more experience...

About which features and strategies should be locked at first I think is up to you. Also because only you know how each feature influences the game itself.

Maybe academy and scout aren't really necessary in the beginning. On strategies, the ones that we still don't have access (split push, lane swap) may be locked also.

First post yei :D
1
Eu concordo com tudo o que o gajo acima disse, ele é espetacular! :D

Cheers!
1
I started playing this game 10 days ago, however if features were timelocked I would not have continued or bothered coming back. For a game like this I think a user needs access to all features from the start so that they can see the depth available.

An alternative that could be good would be to have the user forced to follow the advisor through the various tabs to complete a short "tutorial" before they get full access to everything. This would mean they get guided through the basics but are not restricted from exploring the full set of features at their own pace.
1
although it is a decent idea, I think that the best way for new players to get into the game is with video guides where someone explains the most basic things. I was in The Academy Project, would be fun if they did it since they have a vast knowledge about the game already.
1
Personally, no, it creates the same problem League of Legends has with the summoner spells, rune slots and mastery points getting unlocked as you level, unfair advantage.
1
Video tutorials are a great idea!

I have been thinking about those and maybe I'll try doing them myself, although I do think my Estonian accent would be quite funny.
1
feature locking would be better in my opinion, because when i started a few days ago with this game i was totally confused what's even possible and what i have to do first... i'm still lacking with enough knowledge and even my friends just do random stuff hoping to increase their teamstats and elo :D

but all in all i have to say, even if there will be no feature locking, the game would be awesome and addictive
2
there are a few american players who I think would be more than happy to contribute with making video tutorials. we could all put together a list of what they should take up in the videos and what to not take up!
1
Anyone up for doing video tutorials or working on organising some of these would be a great benefit for the game. As I'd prefer to dedicate my time at the moment more on actual development. So if you are up for the task or anyone willing to contribute on this, it would be appreciated! Any review or video content in general would be very good.

Otherwise I'd probably try my hand at those on some more available weekends.
1
I think it is fine that way, you just have to think of all of it as a whole from the beginning on.
1
I think that a better way to approach something like this would be by utilizing a "feature unlock" idea, which would be similar in nature. Give the starting players every mechanic that the more experienced players have, but limit their options within them. As players progress in divisions, they unlock player slots, strategy slots, coach slots, sponsor slots, etc.

For example, a new player starts in D7.

Said new player would have access to the default strategy (which they can edit), but further slots are locked behind in game currency (the price of which would go up to reflect availability through progress). They would be allowed a coach, but would be unable to purchase supplementary coaches until reaching a higher Div.

I'm an oversimplifier, but I'd do something like this:

D7 - Basic Strategies, Coaching Position, sponsors
D6 - +1 Strategy
D5 - +1 Coaching Position / Sponsorship Slot / Strategy
D4 - +1 Player Slot / Strategy

Etc, so on and so forth.

This would have a similar effect to the one mentioned, with similar pros and cons. More experienced players would have more advantages, due to having climbed the ladder further. Lower ranked players would have less options, but less to worry about, and would be less likely to throw themselves into bankruptcy, because they'd be allowed to focus on things like facilities & infrastructure... or whatever they chose to prioritize.

In reply to:
2. Is this feature necessary and is it helpful?

Necessary? Not in my opinion. I think the game is fine as is, for now, but I haven't seen population statistics or anything like that. Is the change helpful? For players at the top, yeah. For players at the bottom it could be a turn off. Players who play manager games look to manage many aspects of their teams, and giving them less of a game to play could be construed poorly.

In response to video tutorials:

I'd love to see some good digital content and would love to help any way I can. Trinity, that's such a good idea!
1
Don't lock them just add a better explenation in the tutorial about how to use it the right way
1
You guys should just ask in the beginning of registration if the player is new to manager games or have some experience, then if he's new, you could improve the advisor with step-by-step things, advising WHERE to focus early-game and such, not locking out people who wants to progress faster and can't because of a soft-lock
1
I don't like this idea.
1
1. Yes.
2. Not necessary, but helpful to prevent early traps like YA. There is a lot of information, that is not (properly) displayed.
3. YA, maybe until getting higher than div 7 ?
higher facility lvls. maybe 3 lvl per division, starting in 7?
4. No idea
5. Locking strategy parts is not that great overall.
Starters probably won't need all of them at first and since they are only competing with other starters, there is not even an advantage.
The addiction factor of the sandbox mode early on with all its opition is just the stronger effect.
1
As someone who has recently started this game and has limited exposure to management style games (The Esports angle is whay drew me) I'm against the idea of feature locking. It creates artificial barriers between players and prevents players from making their own choices (And often their own mistakes).

As an alternative I'd suggest looking to enhance your tooltip system - possibly with a quest=style approach. You could start the game with lower money than before, and following the quest line could you give you basic rewards. The quests could start very basic (Such as hire a coach, set your strategy ec) and co-exist with the current tooltips (Which could still use some expansion). Eventually the quests become more long term (Eg. get promoted a league, place above X in a tournament, hit 1300 team ELO etc) allowing the player to take their own path to reach them. Using this approach inserts the "grind" element you mentioned and rewards consistent play without blocking features from beginning players, whilst still offering them direction (And a helping hand to power through the relatively slow early aspects of the game).

Thanks for reading!
1
I don't think its a good idea in manager games to lock the ways to play.
But I do think that the best you can do is give more details in how does the elements you choose on the strategy affects the match.

It's not that this game has a crazy amount of things so players worry what to do, the thing is that there are a lot of things that players don't even understand what are they and much less what to do with them.
1
No. Fuck that. I'm a new player and I really valued having fuck all idea what was going on when I started. Being thrown in at the deep end is a design philosophy that is sorely missed in the current landscape.
1
I debates reducing the high barrier to entry initially by reducing the amount of actions new users can do. My suggestion was to give new players 1 coach and 1 pr manager at the start, a once only strategy walk through that gives you a decent explaination of strategy and lower ages on their non star players.

One major thing with strategy, it needs to be clearer. I have been playing this game for over a year and I can't explain what the majority of the strategy options do easily because I don't understand them well.

There may be an option to have some sort of limits to restrict players to certain options, but I would need to be done as a levelling system. Any non-reward based restrictions will feel punishing. This may be an option in the future if there are more features. The goal should be to reward players to play through the diffrent options to level up, but should open the game up quicklyenough to not limit the experience.
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